Opinions on correcting grammar and puncutation in a professional setting:

In My Humble Opinion
1

Recently, I was promoted to an office position at work because of my ability to write well. I am officially still a “peon”, but I do a lot of correspondence with customers through email.

I try as hard as I can to not interfere with others’ work. However, a letter came across my desk today which I felt needed some attention. The letter was not, in fact, supposed to hit my desk. However, I had to read the letter in order for me to realize that.

The literature in question is actually a form letter that will be mailed to about 1,700 of our customers. It was submitted to the head of my department for an “official” lookover before being placed in the mail. I was not the one who was supposed to be proof-reading it.

I did, however, notice that there were three punctuation errors in the letter. All three errors were misplaced commas.

I do not try to pretend I am a perfect writer. I know I make errors when I compose letters. However, I fully expect anyone who finds such errors to point them out so I can correct them. That includes this message board. On the other hand, I have come to find that many people get upset when their errors are corrected in any sort of manner. Perhaps it is my approach or my personality. I don’t know for sure. However, I strongly feel that proper punctuation and grammar are essential to giving any company a professional look. I am certain that, if we send this letter to 1700 people, there will be at least a few readers who find the extra commas to be offensive. I know I do. Such a blunder would lower my esteem for a company greatly.

Therefore, I am stuck with a dilemna. The fact is, this letter should have never touched my desk. Furthermore, I know for a fact that the person who is proofreading the letter will not notice the mistake. She is not proofreading for punctuation or grammatical content…she is proofreading to make sure all the necessary information is present (case in point, she already proof-read the letter once and missed the extra commas).

Furthermore, it is not my job to be an editor. I don’t want to step on any toes, but I want my company to represent itself in as professional of a manner as possible.

Here is the point where I need some opinions:

Should I confront the author with a proof-read copy of the letter?

Thank you for your replies.

2

Yes, I’d speak up about it. Do so politely, and all should be well.

3

If I were your boss, I would appreciate not only the good advice provided, but your positive attitude as well. Your boss is not paid to check every little detail. She’s paid to devote her time to perform managerial functions, not menial tasks. That’s how she adds value to the enterprise: by dealing in general matters, not specifics. She doesn´t have the time to exhaustively proof-read letters for customers (nor is it in the best interests of the company for her to do so). That’s why she delegates such tasks to people who are specifically trained (and paid!) to handle them.

Concerning punctuation and grammar, they are indeed important; their absence can detract from comprehension while giving a sense of careleness that one may infer extends to other areas (if you can not take the time to write a proper letter, why should I trust you to do my taxes or handle my advertising?).

My 2 cents, anyway.

4

Thanks for your quick responses.

I’m going to check this thread again tomorrow morning before I head off to work to see if there are any dissenting viewpoints.

5

Bad grammar in official publications looks really unprofessional to me, though that may just be me.

It’d make sense to bring it up. It’s a draft. It’s SUPPOSED to be corrected. However if your boss doesn’t care, then rocking the boat will only make trouble.

How about handing it to your boss saying “This draft ended up on my desk by accident. I happened to notice there’s a couple grammtical mistakes - does that matter?”

6

Yes, another vote for saying something, politely.

BTW, it’s a well-known fact that bringing in a fresh pair of eyes on a thoroughly proofread piece will inevitably find some major blooper. Your boss, if s/he has the sense s/he was born with, will appreciate it.

As a professional editor, I always zoom in immediately on errors in spelling and punctuation and mock them mercilessly.

7

If the fact that you weren’t supposed to see it is an issue, point it out to someone who was supposed to see it.

8

Good. In that case:

puncutation - in thread title.
dilemna - “dilemma” (see dictionary!).
proofreading/proof-read - a case can be made out for either hyphenating or not, but you should be consistent.
professional of - this is a fashionable barbarism, but a barbarism nonetheless. “professional” alone is correct.

Me? I’m just a know-all, and extremely annoying into the bargain. :smiley:

9

I would give the letter to the person who is supposed to proof-read it. Say something like ‘I didn’t realize that this was ment for you until after I read it. I didn’t see anything wrong except for the comma errors.’

That’s all.

10

I correct bad grammar, misspellings, and anything else that comes to mind when I’m at work no matter who wrote it unless it’s an e-mail or some other internal message. Anything that the customer sees should be perfect.

I have a habit of using too many commas, though. :slight_smile:

11

It is astounding to me how many educated people cannot write well. I work in an office with a number of lawyers, highly educated people who (in theory) make their living with the written word. But their writing is often dreadful. Mispellings, bad punctuation, subject/verb disagreements, using “they’re” for “their” and vice versa, and much, much more.

The occasional typo is one thing, but sloppy professional correspondence really lowers my opinion of the organization I am dealing with. In the case of companies attempting to attract my business, grammatical and other errors can seriously affect their chances.

I owe a considerable part of my professional success to being a technical person who can write.
Note: Casual email is judged by a much looser set of standard. (And, of course, postings to message boards have no standards at all!)

12

I was a secretary to a large marketing department. I was typing up a letter for one of the more productive marketing guys, and it was full of misspellings and improper usage. I corrected the mistakes and attached a little sticky telling him what I had done.

He sent it back to me and demanded that I change them all back. His reason? His FUCKING REASON? He said he would rather be consistently wrong than right only some of the time. I shit you not. This asshole was making three times what I was making, not counting his commissions.

It was at that point that I lost all respect for the business world.

Ahem! I feel much better. Politely correct the mistakes. It’s the right thing to do. And the big boss will appreciate your effort.

13

Thank you :slight_smile:

Ahhh…believe it or not, I proofread this twice before posting it…but I never proofread the title. I spotted this error the first time I visited the board after posting the thread. I had a feeling I was going to get flamed. Thanks for the polite demeanor.

This is a case in point. I actually thought I was spelling this right. Suddenly, the word dilemma has become one of my most common spelling errors by sheer knowledge of the fact that I have been spelling it wrong for so long. Without this correction, I would have gone on spelling it wrong. Now…to just get used to that “mm” thing.

Another good point. Upon further review, this is the same usage of the word, just a different verb tense. I was prepared to argue about this one until I thought about it a bit.

Again, you are right. My biggest error in writing is my tendency to be a bit wordy.

Nah…you caught the errors I missed in my own proof-read. I probably would have caught the extra preposition and the hyphenation had I proof-read down the road a bit…but I would not have found the misspelling of dilemma. The fact that you taught me how to spell the word properly makes it all worth it…thank you :slight_smile:

14

To the rest of you…thanks again for all of the responses.

You’ve all cemented the logic I was trying to portray. My biggest fear, however, comes from the person who actually wrote the letter. She is in charge of writing anything that is to be seen by the public, and I was afraid that my correcting of the error would be viewed as some sort of insubordination.

However, my biggest fear came out of the fact that this woman is one of the people I wrote about in another thread about her lack of a sense of humor.

I did decide to say something. I confronted this lady, who is really a sweet heart. My introductory phrase went something like, “Say, this happened across my desk yesterday. I didn’t realize it wasn’t intended for me until I had proofread it. Would you like to see what I came up with?”

She happens to know that I am an aspiring writer, so she was willing to listen. However, I could tell she was unhappy about someone “below” her pointing out her errors in the field where she was supposed to excel. It turns out I caught her just in time, too. She was on her way to the copy room to make 1700 copies of the letter to give to the “envelope stuffing” department.

She did make the changes, and she did thank me in a short way. However, I think I did some of my best P.R. work ever when, as I parted, I mentioned that it was a great piece of writing…and that I especially liked her correct use of semicolons in the last sentence of the letter. I said, “It’s nice to see someone who actually knows how to use one”.

To this, she actually blushed a bit and gave me a sincere “Thank you”.

I’ll file this in the category of experience. Five years ago, I would have rushed into the cubicle with the corrections, and I probably would have burned a bridge in the process. However, the fact that I was willing to take the dilemma home with me, ask some advice, and then take action has probably earned me some respect in the office where I am still relatively new.

Thanks again for the advice. It was good advice.

15

To the rest of you…thanks again for all of the responses.

You’ve all cemented the logic I was trying to portray. My biggest fear, however, comes from the person who actually wrote the letter. She is in charge of writing anything that is to be seen by the public, and I was afraid that my correcting of the error would be viewed as some sort of insubordination.

However, my biggest fear came out of the fact that this woman is one of the people I wrote about in another thread about her lack of a sense of humor.

I did decide to say something. I confronted this lady, who is really a sweet heart. My introductory phrase went something like, “Say, this happened across my desk yesterday. I didn’t realize it wasn’t intended for me until I had proofread it. Would you like to see what I came up with?”

She happens to know that I am an aspiring writer, so she was willing to listen. However, I could tell she was unhappy about someone “below” her pointing out her errors in the field where she was supposed to excel. It turns out I caught her just in time, too. She was on her way to the copy room to make 1700 copies of the letter to give to the “envelope stuffing” department.

She did make the changes, and she did thank me in a short way. However, I think I did some of my best P.R. work ever when, as I parted, I mentioned that it was a great piece of writing…and that I especially liked her correct use of semicolons in the last sentence of the letter. I said, “It’s nice to see someone who actually knows how to use one”.

To this, she actually blushed a bit and gave me a sincere “Thank you”.

I’ll file this in the category of experience. Five years ago, I would have rushed into the cubicle with the corrections, and I probably would have burned a bridge in the process. However, the fact that I was willing to take the dilemma home with me, ask some advice, and then take action has probably earned me some respect in the office where I am still relatively new.

Thanks again for the advice. It was good advice.

16

Holy smokes…my first ever double post.

How did this happen? I only hit submit once.

17

That’s actually a rather interesting phenomenon. Both posts are listed as posted at 7:51, yet, IIRC, one minute must be allowed to elapse in-between posts. Could this be the 7th sign of the Apocalypse? :slight_smile: